American Politics Hits Bottom And Blame Lies With Congress

COMMENTARY

January 7, 1988|By RICHARD REEVES, Universal Press Syndicate

DES MOINES, Iowa -- This is supposed to be fun, and it usually is. I remember how excited I was when I got my first national campaign assignments in 1968, and I didn`t feel all that different arriving here on Monday.

After all, how often does a man get a chance to leave bosses, checkbooks and leaky roofs behind, and climb aboard an expense account, all in the name of preserving and promoting democracy? On the lifestyle level, following a presidential campaign is a kind of prolonged adolescence. The candidates are supposed to be such clowns; what does that make those of us who write down or film every silly word they say?

But along with all the laughs and the late nights and camaraderie -- still basically male camaraderie -- most of us feel we are making a real and necessary contribution to government of the people, by the people and for the people. It beats welding, which I once did.

That said, I begin 1988 more depressed than in any of my five previous national election years. I think American politics touched a new low last year. I don`t mean the character and credentials of the six-packs of presidential candidates. I have a touching faith that one or two of them will turn out to be about the best we can be. My depression (and anger) concerns the 100th Congress.

More specifically, I mean the Democratic majorities of the Congress. These people are selling out the people who elected them. They are selling out America and the ideas that united the states.

Naming names, I mean:

-- Robert Byrd, the Senate majority leader who could neither build nor lead a majority to deal with the obvious crises in the United States` public and private economies. Byrd`s courage and stature are principal reasons that a befuddled ideologue like Ronald Reagan could look 10 feet tall for six years.

-- Edward Kennedy and Fritz Hollings, who have been manipulating the intricacies of congressional procedures to secretly write a law forcing a newspaper publisher they don`t like (Rupert Murdoch, whom I`m not crazy about either) to divest himself of two newspapers, the New York Post and the Boston Herald. No votes, no hearings; just the use of closed committee meetings to tag a little new language onto laws already passed.

-- Daniel Inouye used tactics as sneaky to slip in legal language transferring $8 million from a disgracefully small U.S. refugee-aid budget to the pet project of a financial contributor, schools for North African Jews in France. If Inouye were a civilian, someone would be calling the cops.

-- Rep. Charles Wilson, D-Texas, used his position on the House`s Appropriations and Intelligence committees to cut the budget of the Defense Intelligence Agency because it seems that two years ago DIA refused to allow a government plane to fly a lady friend of the congressman`s with him to Pakistan.

-- Then I would like to single out a distinguished former member of Congress, the retired speaker of the House, Tip O`Neill. His greatest contribution to American governance is likely to be a quote: ``All politics is local.``

Only, I would say, to the small-minded. There is a calculating cynicism to O`Neill`s remark, as if elected representatives have no higher responsibility than servicing their districts or their own re-election -- or just the locality of their own interests or those of a few friends.

The speaker not only charmingly denigrated the national interest, he often put his leadership where his mouth was. He made a real contribution to the breakdown of representative democracy as national government. The thing, Congress, is broken. It needs fixing. What fix? A time limit on ``service.`` Senators should be limited to two consecutive six-year terms. Members of Congress should be limited to six consecutive two-year terms. I would let them come back after five years as civilians -- if the voters will have them.

I`m sure such limitations would create new problems and abuses that I cannot foresee. Reforms always do that. But we have to break up a class of professional politicians -- and that is their only profession -- who stay in Washington so long that they forget that they are there to represent the rest of us. Tip O`Neill was there for 34 years. Byrd has been there for 29 years, Inouye and Kennedy for 25 each, Hollings for 21, and the vindictive Rep. Wilson for 15.

We could do without all of them and their local politics. Then we might all have a better time in national politics.